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by douche 3600 days ago
If you are so close to your coworkers that typing on your keyboard will disrupt their phone calls, you're too close.

If you have a real office, anything short of blasting Slayer won't disturb anyone else.

4 comments

Have you ever used a Model M?

With a decent amount of enthusiasm, a Model M can disrupt phonecalls being made in another room entirely.

Best keyboard ever, but I also don't take mine to work any more, out of consideration for my coworkers. Also it's really big and heavy...

Add to the Model M the acoustics of a typical open office plan found at most startups and its unbearable. Its not uncommon to have a startup in a concrete loft type space with a group of people who insist on using whatever the modern $200 hipster version of a "buckling spring" keyboard is. It's "cred" man.
> using whatever the modern $200 hipster version of a "buckling spring" keyboard is

Those would be Topre switches. Which makes the keyboard worth more than $200. ;)

They are good switches, and do rely on a spring, but they are quieter. And more expensive.

Unicomp sells actual buckling spring keyboards. They bought the tech from IBM -> Lexmark. Not bad keyboards, and pretty cheap compared to some of the hipster keyboards. I got mine with hardware Dvorak layout.
WAIT, my Model M blasts Slayer at every keystroke. Doesn't yours? It also has Metallica's Kill 'Em All pre-loaded in ROM. I heard if you achieve a fast enough rate it'll go straight to Seek & Destroy :).

Seriously though, these keyboards are LOUD. Most of the folks at my office use very loud keyboards, but we don't mind. We all know that we type faster with them, and we all have noise canceling headphones.

Pissh. A sufficiently sophisticated keyboard is capable of playing arbitrary music of the user's choice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG83krAsXO8

A model m is just slightly less loud than a typewriter and you can type faster on it.
I do have a coworker I currently share an office with who would actually like blasting Slayer. ;-) (Interesting thought experiment: Can I type faster than Dave Lombardo can play the drums?)